“I know, but... ” I sighed. “Look, I’m going to head to hair and makeup, okay? I just... need a minute.”
He nodded, obviously concerned, but we left the tent and crossed the lot to where hair and makeup were set up. Ryan wasn’t quite done yet, but I threw myself into the chair beside him. Callan took to standing nearby, but not too near me. “Tall, Dark, and Threatening looks even more menacing than usual. What’s wrong?” Ryan asked.
I sighed. “There was a photog skulking around the tents. Callan had to buy the guy’s camera and threaten him off.”
Ryan whistled. “What’d they want?”
“Confirmation that we’re a couple... pretty sure it’d be worth a few million.”
“Damn. Couple of million bucks just for a picture of us? Why the hell are we making this movie again?”
I giggled, and it helped relieve some of the tension in my chest. “Pretty sure if we weren’t making this movie, no one would care.”
Ryan shrugged. “True.” He looked over at our wardrobe for today. “Are we doing the big fight scene?”
I nodded. “Either that or your death scene, for sure.”
He swore. “I am not ready for a death scene today. I’m going to need more coffee first.”
The thought of coffee normally brought me joy. I could drink coffee all day long and never tire of it. But now, it made my stomach turn into a heavy knot. “How can you drink coffee right now? It’s a million degrees out here.”
Ryan scoffed. “Don’t be such a wuss.”
A headache bloomed behind my eye, and I lay back as much as I could in the chair. “I feel like I’m hungover,” I told him. “But I haven’t touched alcohol in weeks.”
Ryan didn’t look up from his phone as the hairstylist put the finishing touches on the wig that he wore. It was an artfully disheveled mess, so my assumption that Lee would want to start with the emotionally charged death scene appeared to be right on the money. The hairdresser took the wig off his head and returned it to the dummy head. there was something not quite right in the fit. She wandered away, murmuring to herself.
Ryan kept scrolling, eyes on his phone’s screen. “If I thought you were getting laid at all, I would suggest that you sound pregnant, but since I’m pretty sure you’re a virgin—”
But I wasn’t a virgin. In fact, I was having more sex now than I ever had before. Ryan’s words hit me like he’d taken a bat to my head.Pregnant?There wasn’t any way. I had an implant. It was good for three years, and I’d only had it for one.
“Ryan, I’m having sex,” I said. “I’m having alotof sex.”
That piqued his interest. “Do tell!” The man was positively foaming at the mouth. Could I trust him with this? Or would he go running to the media with a hot tip to sell?
“If I tell you, and you tellanyoneelse,” I said, “I will be forced to murder you and throw you down a mineshaft. Do you understand?”
Ryan looked sufficiently terrified. “I understand, you psycho. How bad could it possibly be?”
I looked around, making sure that there weren’t any prying eyes or ears standing around. “Do you remember asking me if I was sleeping with any of my security guards?”
He looked positively gleeful. “Iknewthat’s why Tall, Dark, and Threatening didn’t like me! You’re fucking him.”
I winced and wished that he would keep his voice down even a little bit, but he was an actor with one of the biggest, and most obnoxious, personalities I’d ever met. He wouldn’t begin to understand what being quiet meant. “Yes, Cal and I are in a relationship.”
His shoulders drooped. “Explain how that’s so terrible? A lot of actors date their bodyguards at one point or another.”
I took a breath. “Because it’s notjustCallan,” I said. “It’s Foster and Ethan too.”
Ryan stared at me for a long time, mouth open in a really unattractive way. “You’re... with all of them?”
“Yeah. I’m dating all of them.”
“Are they... ? Are they also dating each other?”
I shook my head. “Nope. They just... share me with each other.” I held up a hand to stop whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “It’s just them. That’s their dynamic. I’m not free to date whoever else I want.”
He considered this for a moment. “You’re a polyandrist,” he said and then smirked. “They’re your brother-husbands.”